Upset Hindus are urging Eureka (California) based award-winning Lost Coast Brewery to not use Hindu deity Ganesh’s image on its Indica IPA beer bottles, calling it highly inappropriate.
Label of its “hoppy and full-bodied” Indica India Pale Ale (ABV 6.50%), which sells in 12 fl oz. bottle and in 6-pack, carries the image of Ganesh sitting on a chair.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, said that inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial or other agenda was not okay as it hurt the devotees.
Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and he was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be used in selling beer. Moreover, linking a deity with an alcoholic beverage was very disrespectful, Zed added.
Hinduism was the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion adherents and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken frivolously. Symbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled, Rajan Zed noted.
In Hinduism, Ganesh is worshipped as god of wisdom and remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking. There are about three million Hindus in USA.
According to its website, Lost Coast Brewery, founded in 1989, whose tagline is “not just another craft brewery”, bottles up to 135,000 beers and fill 1,000 kegs every day; and has distributors in 21 states of USA and Puerto Rico; besides Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Italy, Japan and Panama. Barbara Groom is the founder.
City of Eureka (state historic landmark), founded in 1856, along Northern California coastline, is bordered on one side by Humboldt Bay and on the other by the mountains. Frank Jager and Greg Sparks are the Mayor and City Manager respectively.
Source : From Our Correspondent
